Shaun the Sheep is ready for his close-up

Shaun the Sheep will make his leap to the big screen, the woolly jumper becoming the latest character from Aardman, the English animation company behind Wallace and Gromit, to get his own feature film.

The as-yet-untitled movie will be written and directed by Richard Starzak (aka Richard Goleszowski, aka Golly) and Mark Burton. It is expected to be released in 2015.

Plans for a Shaun movie first surfaced in 2011, when Goleszowski said he would take his inspiration from the comedies of the pre-sound era.

"My goal is to make a modern-day silent movie starring Shaun," he told the BBC. "When we started writing the television series we stuck a picture of Buster Keaton on the studio door."

The company has issued a brief synopsis for the film on its website and via press release. "When Shaun’s mischief inadvertently leads to the Farmer being taken away from the farm, Shaun, Bitzer and the flock have to go into the big city to rescue him, setting the stage for an epic adventure."

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The claymation Shaun is one of the most successful characters created by the Bristol-based animation house. He made his first appearance in Nick Park's Oscar-winning 1995 short A Close Shave, as a supporting player to stars Wallace and Gromit. In 2007, he landed a spin-off series of his own for children's television. Two more series of seven-minute shorts have followed and Aardman is in development on a fourth.

The series has been screened in 180 countries and is frequently among the top-ranking programs on Australian digital television.

The Shaun the Sheep movie will be produced in collaboration with French media company Studio Canal, which recently took over Hoyts Distribution (a separate entity to the cinema chain) in Australia.

Aardman has previously had production deals with Dreamworks (for Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Flushed Away) and Sony (Wallace and Gromit's A Matter of Loaf and Death, Pirates!).

Of the new venture, David Sproxton, executive chairman and co-founder of Aardman, said via press release: "Shaun and his friends have a massive global following and we are very excited about being able to put them into a bigger adventure for the big screen."